Books and Arts
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Settling Down
The friends have scattered, and the sex has gone out of the city. There's nothing left to do but find an unobjectionable man, get engaged, and undergo the ritualistic abasement of introductions to the prospective in-laws. That, at least, is the implicit message of Rumor Has It and The Family Stone, two cinematic life rafts for female stars--Jennifer Aniston and Sarah Jessica Parker, respectively--whose sexy, Manhattan singlehoods have run their televised course. READ MORE >>
Simon Says
Highbrows widely regard the singing competition "American Idol"--and the contest's mascot, its tart English judge, Simon Cowell--as an omen of impending cultural apocalypse. To list the specifics of this grim forecast: Performing more-or-less karaoke, complete with shooting flames and ocean waves projected on a massive video screen behind them, contestants pay homage to the most irksome trifles in the history of pop. READ MORE >>
Two-Timing
As both my husband and I scrambled to meet work deadlines last week--while simultaneously juggling multiple doctors' appointments and assuring our daughter's day care teachers that, yes, one of us would still be able to watch the class for an hour during the monthly staff meeting--it once again struck me: What most modern marriages really need is an extra wife. READ MORE >>
Simon Says
Virtues and Verdicts
Justice in Robes By Ronald Dworkin (Harvard University Press, 308 pp., $35) READ MORE >>
An Imperialist Indifference
Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide By Gerard Prunier (Cornell University Press, 212 pp., $24)Darfur: A Short History of a Long War By Julie Flint and Alex de Waal (Zed Books, 152 pp., $19.99) READ MORE >>
Getting In
A Nation By Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America by Aristide R. Zolberg (Harvard University Press, 658 pp., $39.95) READ MORE >>
The Misreader
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine By Harold Bloom (Riverhead Books, 256 pp., $24.95) I. READ MORE >>
No Man's Land
For fans and critics alike, Brokeback Mountain will forever be known as the "gay cowboy" movie. Almost invariably, the emphasis will be placed on the first half of that label--and understandably so: The love, briefly indulged and long inhibited, between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist is the narrative and emotional core of the film and of the Annie Proulx short story on which it is based. And, of course, the mere fact that a mainstream movie took this doomed romance as its subject represents a cinematic, and perhaps social, milestone. READ MORE >>
